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Mr. Ancram: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for pointing out that the Conservative leadership has never suggested withdrawal from the European Union. Will he confirm that the only leadership of a major party ever to do so was that of his party in 1983? Will he also confirm that he supported his leadership in that?
Mr. Straw: What we did in 1983 provides, I think, a very good case study in how to suffer the most devastating defeat in electoral history. I invite the right hon. and learned Gentleman to pursue that course. He has, incidentally, given me an opportunity to give a wider audience to a most perceptive piece in The Times on Monday by Mr. Tim Hames, who wrote that the pledge of withdrawal and exit from the EU
"is not a pledge that the Conservatives can deliver and, if they could, Michael Ancram, the shadow Foreign Secretary, is hardly the figure to do so credibly. Mr Ancram is, somewhat grandly, to deliver a lecture next month entitled 'Whither India?' After his performance over the past few weeks, India might respond by organising an address called 'Whither Michael Ancram?'"
Let me be clear about what thoroughgoing renegotiation would involve. It would mean withdrawing from the common fisheries policy, as
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signed up to by the Conservatives. It would involve withdrawing from the EU's overseas aid system, as praised by Margaret Thatcher and signed up to by the Conservatives. It would involve "abandoning"—the word used by the right hon. and learned Member for Devizes—the common foreign and security policy, as signed up to by the Conservatives and actively supported in the House by the right hon. and learned Gentleman himself. And it would mean withdrawing from the social chapter.
The hard-liners do not even want to stop there, and why should they? Some want Britain to withdraw from the common agricultural policy. Some even question fundamental concepts, such as the primacy of EU law and qualified majority voting. It all sounds deceptively easy—a pick-and-mix approach, where you can have your cake and eat it. But it is a sham. The big problem for the Conservatives is that renegotiating the terms of Britain's membership requires the unanimous agreement of all 24 other member states of the EU.
For the Europhobes, that, of course, is exactly the point. Because when the so-called renegotiation failed—as it surely would—Britain would have no option but to withdraw. The Conservative leadership, notwithstanding the denials that we have heard today, is gradually being pushed into that place. Last Wednesday, we had the most extraordinary spectacle as the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe went on the radio—I heard every word—to offer his view about what would happen if "renegotiation" of the common fisheries policy failed to secure the agreement of the other 24 member states. He said, explicitly, that the Conservatives would not withdraw from the European Union:
"That was not the way in which it was done before, and I do not think it would be sensible again."
But then, within four hours, after huge pressure and panic in the Conservative party, the right hon. and learned Leader of the Opposition adopted the extraordinary device of writing a letter to his own shadow Fisheries Minister to set out the position in greater detail, saying
"should negotiation not succeed . . . we would introduce the necessary legislation to bring about full national and local control."
Mr. Straw: That is right, says the right hon. and learned Member for Devizes, but this is where the position of the Conservative party is simply a deceit and a sham. Unilateral withdrawal from international treaty obligations on that scale would completely undermine our continued membership of the European Union. Such an organisation can operate only if all member states agree to abide by the rules.
When the right hon. and learned Gentleman stands up to talk about withdrawing from the common fisheries policy and seeking to impose unilaterally legislation that undermines—[Interruption.] He mutters about the growth and stability pact, but that is not inside the treaties while the common fisheries policy is: if he does not understand that, he understands absolutely nothing about the legal basis of the European Union.
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The right hon. and learned Gentleman must stand up and explain how, when and if a new fishing Bill is put through to "repatriate" the common fisheries policy, it will be consistent with obligations in the accession treaty that we entered into in 1972, and which his Government reconfirmed time, time and time again. Then he has to explain whether we would pay the fines that the European Court of Justice would impose on us for our breach of treaty obligations. Then he has to spell out what would happen in British courts when those disadvantaged by the change in national law claimed their treaty rights, which are also part of British law. I can tell him what would happen then: as long as we remained inside the European Union, the British courts would find in favour of the treaty rights. Next, the right hon. and learned Gentleman has to explain how his exercise would lead to absolutely nothing except the humiliation of the United Kingdom. He needs to stand up and spell all that out.
Were we to go down the road of withdrawal, as an increasing number of members of the Conservative party want to do, we must be clear that it would not be cost free, as the Conservatives try to pretend. I invite hon. Members to read the interesting article in The Independent today that spells out the fact that not being a member of the European Union would not be cost free.
Mrs. Angela Browning (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con): Rubbish.
Mr. Straw: Rubbish, we are told. But it would mean applying European legislation while having no say in deciding it. It would mean contributing to the European Union budget but getting almost nothing back—Norway alone pays €230 million a year to finance EU enlargement. British exporters, who can today trade free of obstacle throughout Europe, would have to fill out a 12-page form every time they wanted to send their products across the channel—extra red tape, extra costs and extra delays.
Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con): Nonsense.
Mr. Straw: The right hon. Gentleman can say that, but I have the form here and will happily give it to him, all 12 pages of it. The Conservatives talk about trying to scale back bureaucracy and red tape, but withdrawing from the European Union would disadvantage every business in Britain and increase red tape.
Withdrawal would also mean losing the global influence that we have as part of the single market, with a quarter of world gross domestic product and a third of world trade. That is the vision that the Eurosceptics of the Conservative party have of Britain. It is not my view; nor, I believe, is it the view of the majority of British people.
At the beginning of this speech, I quoted a passage from Margaret Thatcher offering high and justified praise for the European Union. That was in the early 1980s, when the Conservative party was actively and constructively engaged in the European Union, campaigning for qualified majority voting to ensure that the single market would work and for a common foreign
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and defence policy. However, as the Conservative party became more and more despondent about its own long-term future, so it became about Britain's influence in the world. Therefore, as it has done repeatedly over two centuries, the Conservative party turned in on itself on the issue of the UK's relations with the rest of the world, particularly Europe. Conservative pessimism has produced a defeatist attitude to Europe and a similarly defeatist view of Britain's place in the world. It is a view based on the belief that Britain can never succeed in Europe, and that all we can aspire to do is to hold back the tide. It betrays a total lack of confidence in the force of Britain's influence.
We take a different view. By engaging in Europe, we can lead reform. If we put Britain at the margins, our partners will go ahead and, quite naturally, arrange things that may not suit us. If we want Europe to pursue the right policies to make us more prosperous and more competitive in the world, we need to be at the centre of decisions, making our case and winning the arguments. That has been our approach on the constitutional treaty. We have made clear what we will not accept, but we have also shaped the debate in our favour. Now we have the chance to agree a treaty that encapsulates Britain's vision of an effective, reforming Europe, in which 25 proud and rather different nations can work together to enhance their prosperity and their power.
It is a chance that the Government are determined to seize. If a treaty is agreed, we will make the case for that kind of Europe to Parliament and then to the British people, who will have the final say. The case will be for a Europe in which Britain is stronger, not weaker; winning, not whining; powerful, not powerless. And we will be negotiating for a treaty that sets out the framework of a modern and effective Europe of nations, in which Britain is leading reform to ensure that the organisations from which we have benefited so much in the past continue to deliver the jobs, growth and security that we want in the future.
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